Friday, March 26, 2010

Fork Tongues Lie

Matt: We have got to make this one heavy, like nothing we’ve done before.
Des: What the hell have we been doing all these years?
Jeff: I got a few ideas.

It’s just another day at Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon when High on Fire get together.

Jeff: So when do you want to meet and work all these riffs out?
Matt: When do we get off tour?
Des: On Communion I got the chance to throw down some thrash. Can we keep that alive?
Matt: I want this album to rip. Hold nothing back.
Des: Like on Blessed Black Wings?
Anonymous drunk: Hey aren’t you that Pike guy?
Matt: Um, yeah my name is…
Anonymous drunk: Dude, you sound just like Lemmy!
Matt: Thanks. Motorhead rules.

Des: I have got tons of great fills, kinda like Slayer’s "Necrophobic."
Jeff: And I really want to get into some creepy bass work.
Des: Aren’t we working with that big name producer on our new album?
Jeff: You mean Greg Fidelman?
Des: Yeah, that dude.
Matt: I got a feeling we are gonna clash.
Anonymous drunk: Man, you sound just like Lemmy and Black Sabbath! Your band is amazing and sh*t!
Matt: Umm. Thanks. Later bro.

Des: Didn’t he produce the last Slayer record, World Painted Blood?
Jeff: Ya, and played a role in the last Metallica record.
Des: Seems like a bad idea.
Jeff: Metallica did put out their best album about two decades.
Des: Is that really saying much?
Jeff: How many times did you listen to Master?
Des: Reality or Puppets?
Matt: What are you trying to be, Cliff Burton or something?
Jeff: No, I just want to toy around with the kind of tones that they were able to rock on songs like “The Thing That Should Not Be.”
Matt: Between the two of us I think we can work something out.
Des: Slow it down a little?
Matt: Keep it heavy.
Anonymous drunk: Hey Pike guy! Be like Venom!

Last Chance has a lone patron sitting at the other end of the bar. Dressed in a Hellhammer jacket and crusty jeans, he finishes his dry whiskey and exists the Saloon. Driving away in his pickup he blares Celtic Frost's “Circle of Tyrants."

Des: Can we rock some Judas Priest, maybe like “Sinner?”
Jeff: I was thinking “Beyond the Realms of Death.”
Matt: As long as we keep it late classic late 70’s Priest, I'm cool.
Des: Matt, you said you wanted to write something about Samurai's?
Matt: Ya, I think it would fit with the tribal warfare theme we got going.

Anonymous drunk: Please, man, I am stupid drunk, but please don’t sell out like Metallica!
Bartender: Have you ever listened to No Life 'til Leather?
Anonymous drunk: No. Why does that matter? I just wanna say…I think...I'm gonna be sick.

Matt: Ok, so I want to make this one heavy.
Des: I’m ready to rip it up.
Jeff: Sounds good. Anybody got an album title?

Monday, March 15, 2010

Photos From Last Night

Blues Control released an E.P. this last year entitled Local Flavor, and overall, it didn’t knock me off of my feet. I had never heard of the band before, so I can’t say it was a major disappointment since I really didn’t have any expectations, it's just that most of the songs I thought tied into a larger narrative about what is hot now…with one exception.

It’s a rainy day in 1972. Little Richard walks into a dark New Orleans dive with a red sequence suite and a green valour bow tie. He grazes a bouncer who measures time in neon lighting, takes a deep breathe, and glances across the room only to see Frank Zappa drop a nickle and throw on The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” A worn and lonely bartender understands just why, and calmly watches Zappa squat over at a nearby booth laced with cigarette ash, oak, and pearl leather. The bartender thinks about the time in 69', when he wandered onto the Brooklyn Bridge at 4:15 in the morning with Lou Reed and screamed at the top of their lungs, "You Gotta, You Gotta, Gotta, Try A Little Tenderness!"

Blues Control captured all of this on "Good Morning" and have created one of my favorite songs of the last year. The E.P. is only four songs long, but if you know anything about the good times, you know they go by fast.